The present invention relates to an automatic magazine or store for electronic components, in particular for automatic insertion of integrated circuits on boards, panels and/or the like.
As is known, automatic machines are currently commercially available for inserting, on boards and/or panels, integrated circuits generally constituted by blocks for example of parallelepipedal shape from which a plurality of connecting pins protrudes.
Said integrated circuits in particular are usually contained in a stacked arrangement in elongated tubular containment bodies from which each integrated circuit is caused to exit by gravity, in succession, starting from the lowermost integrated circuit of the stack, for appropriate placement on the circuit boards and/or panels.
For this purpose, insertion machines comprise a rack on which the various container tubes or "packs" of integrated circuits to be mounted are loaded; loading of said packs is performed manually by an operator who must also periodically replace progressively depleting packs with full ones. In order to do so, the operator, before he takes the individual packs from a previously loaded magazine, must check the correct removal position and must then place each individual pack on the rack, carefully checking the loading position. In this operation the empty pack must be replaced with great speed in order to prevent unwanted machine stops which would negatively affect the productive efficiency of said machine.
It is thus evident that consequently the operator is subjected to a very demanding and tiring work due to the constant attention for searching for the empty pack, the identification whereof currently depends on said operator's experience.
Furthermore the operator, even if he has great experience, often makes mistakes in removing the full packs, removing for example an adjacent pack instead of the correct one, or mistakes in the placement of a full pack on the rack, with consequent mistakes in the manufacture of the boards, which will necessarily have to be rejected.